Is it possible to boot Win 7 from a SD card or USB stick?

My wife's netpad or whatever they are called was dropped the other day and as a result the harddrive is now dead. It just keeps clicking away when trying to boot windows. so rather than buy a new HD I was wondering is I could use one of the many SD cards or USB sticks I have to boot windows 7. It shouldn't be a problem right? But doesn't the PC need drivers to read a USB stick? If so then it wouldn't boot windows from one I guess.

 

You can boot it from a USB stick for sure. I use Hirens BootCD Restored written to a 16G USB almost daily, and it includes XP and 7. It's heavily customized to run from a DVD/USB though... A general use install is not going to be easy. And no, most modern motherboards will be able to boot from USB without any drivers. SD cards sometimes work, but it depends on the chipset.

Any reason why a Linux distribution wouldn't work in your situation?

 

You could use Linux, for example Ubuntu is great start! :encouragement: But for some actions may require use the Terminal.
It works very great on USB drive, but I really recommend to get a SSD instead HDD due its really solid in one day.

 

Most netbooks can boot from USB, the drivers are built into the BIOS. Windows will keep using the BIOS to read the disk until it can take over with it's own drivers.

http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/win7onusb

If you're booting from USB3 then you'll need to slip stream the drivers into the image, but instructions are at the end of the page.

 

As was already mentioned, most newer motherboards have drivers built into the BIOS.

 

What doesn't he have? A motherboard? A BIOS? Netbooks have both of those things. Also, most netbooks don't have CD/DVD drives, so for that to work he'd need an external drive.

You don't need UEFI to boot from USB, at least with Linux and Mac OS X. I assume it's the same with Windows 7.

 

Win7 works fine from USB, no clue what assembler is complaining about.

The installer wont let you install to USB though, you need to manually extract the install.wim to the USB device and make it bootable (bcdboot, etc) and it will work fine.

No need for a UEFI bios, no issue with "windows 7 initialising usb late"

 

You did elaborate, you said Windows 7 Initilizes USB devices late in bootup, which isnt correct nor an issue with whats being asked. We can all be wrong, there's no need to disguise it as something else.

Anyways, most laptops will boot from USB, ESPECIALLY netbooks - as they have no optical drive for OS reinstalls.

Though id not recommend running your OS from USB as anything other than a stop gap solution. Its too slow =/

 

True, but most netbooks do not have express card. Also, its more of a pain in the ass to install (need to add usb 3.0 drivers offline, as win7 has no native support). Also, by the time you buy an express card usb 3.0 card + fast usb 3.0 stick, you might as well buy a 64gb ssd.

 

I have a PC from around 2007 or 2008 that allows for USB booting and changing of the boot order. I use it for recovery tools that need to DOS boot in order to run. No HDD with Windows on it at all in this machine. USB booting is done straight from BIOS which is NOT uefi since the board is around 5 to 6 years old now and uefi has only been around a year or 2.

I haven't seen any late model netbooks with expresscard slots much less many full notebooks with it either.

 

Thanks for the info. Linux would be good for someone who is in to computers but this is for my wife who knows only Windows and would be lost using any other platform.

Now that could be the key. thanks very much!

Most modern netbooks don't have optical drives If it did life would be much esier.

Ah, tha's not a problem. I've already checked the BIOS and it is possible to change the boot device and order.

 

Isn't there an official tool that can make a Windows 7 USB stick?

 

Yes.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

 

Thats a USB install stick, not running windows itself from usb.

 

just get another hdd already running windows off usb will be awfully slow

 

Not to be aggressive towards you, but fuck Ubuntu (Unity to be exact) ! , I would personally recommend any of the two Linux Mint distros, and my favourite of the two is with MATE (Gnome 2.xx fork) vs. Cinnamon (Gnome 3 fork) . But that is just my personal opinion, but yeah I think Linux would be great. But I doubt Yakumo-sama´s wife would be so happy about Linux. But I could be wrong.